Professor Mikhailov, old-fashioned and sharp-eyed had always noticed Nastya's quiet brilliance —the way she dissected Chekhov with precision, the way she wrote essays that read like they came from a woman twice her age. He knew she worked nights, and her grades came with exhaustion stitched between the lines.
One day after class, he stopped her at the door.
- [ ] "You are still planning on working the weekend shift at the bar?"
- [ ] "Yes, sir"
- [ ] "Don't. There's something else you need to do"
He handed her an envelope —thick card stock and gold trim.
- [ ] The university's donor's circle is hosting a gala. They gave us two passes. One will be wasted on some brat who won't even the remember the art. The other should go to someone who understands what's behind it."
She opened the envelope with trembling hands.
- [ ] "Sir, I can't —"
- [ ] "Nonsense. You'll go. You'll wear whatever you have, stand straight and talk about books like you always do. If anyone makes you feel small, quote Tolstoy until they shut up."
It was the first time in weeks anyone had looked at her like she was more than her paycheck.
Professor Mikhailov didn't just offer her an invitation —he offered her a way to breathe.
- [ ] "There's a small stipend ," he said, voice low and casual, as if he hadn't just thrown her a lifeline. "A thank you from the donors association. It's too much, but —well, I thought of you."
He didn't say what she already knew: he'd pulled strings, asked favors, bent rules.
The moment she heard "stipend," She thought of her mother's medicine —the prescription she's been rationing, the clinic bill Lena had hidden under the fridge magnet.
Nastya didn't like accepting help. Pride was the few things she had left. But sometimes, pride bends to necessity.
So she accepted the invitation —not because she dreamed of balloons and chandeliers but because fifty extra rubles meant that her mother could breathe easier for another week.
She didn't own anything fancy. But her sister, Lena, found a second hand boutique run by an old widow who used to work in costume design. The woman , moved by Nastya's smile and trembling voice, gave her a long black dress —simple, sleeveless, elegant in a way that belonged in a different life.
She altered it herself with Lena's help, stitching the hem by candlelight.
She borrowed shoes. She did her own hair. She painted her lips in the mirror with shaking hands.
When she stepped out into the snow that night, coat pulled tight around her, she didn't feel like she belonged.
But she went anyway.
Not because she wanted to meet anyone. But because sometimes, you have to walk into places you don't believe are meant for you —just to prove the world wrong.
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The black car that dropped her wasn't a taxi. It belonged to the university —a dusty old Mercedes with a cracked leather seat and a driver who barely spoke. She stepped out, boots crunching softly on fresh snow, coat buttoned up to her chin, heart pounding somewhere between her ribs and her throat.
Volchansk Art museum was lit like a cathedral. Golden chandeliers glowed behind tall glass, casting soft light on to marble columns and a staircase too clean to feel real. Men in suits, women in velvets and diamonds drifted inside like smoke.
Nastya hesitated at the button of the stairs.
Everyone looked like they belonged. Everyone except her.
She felt the fabric of her borrowed dress shift under her coat. The hem was just slightly uneven, stitched by candlelight with Lena's sleeping fingers. Her heels wobbled once on the ice.
But she took a breath.
Then another.
And she walked up the stairs —not slowly, not too fast. Calm, poised. Like someone who had every right to be there.
Inside, the heat hit her like perfume and polished money. A woman took her coat. A man offered her champagne. A string quartet played something elegant in the corner, while people murmured about auction and art and foreign things she couldn't pronounce.
She stayed near the edge at first. Studied the paintings Let her breath settle. A few heads turned her way —some curious, some dismissive.
She ignored them all.
Then, from across the room, a man looked at her.
Not a man
Anton Reznikov.
He was half in shadow, standing near a sculpture, drink in hand. But his gaze was locked on her like he'd been waiting.
Nastya didn't look away. She couldn't.
She didn't know it yet, but that was the moment something changed.
Not in the room.
In fate.